Every Imaginable Universe
by TheVelvetDusk
Summary: "One eyeful of that nearly unrecognizable pair, with all their weapons and grime and stoicism, and Lucy is terrified." {post 2x10 ficlet, because future!lyatt is straight fire, ok?}
1. Chapter 1

_a/n: HOLY MEGA FRICK, THAT FINALE._

 _this is a standalone post-2x10 ficlet for now, but I know better than to mark it as a complete, because I'm sure there will be more eventually! Basically consider this story as my dumping ground for whatever little scenarios could fit appropriately into the same theme/plot._

 _this was written in one very hot minute, so please be kind :)_

* * *

She feels him blowing in behind her, a stirring shift in the air preceding him, a frisson of new energy. The heavy thud of his steps acts as her forewarning, a wind whipping over the glassy calm of a lake, the sign of the storm to come.

A storm she wants to avoid at all costs.

They haven't discussed their future selves. Hell, she's made sure to keep plenty of room - or even better, the buffer of every person in this bunker - between herself and Wyatt from the moment they saw their battle weary counterparts swinging through the hatch of their silver-glinting Lifeboat. One eyeful of that nearly unrecognizable pair, with all their weapons and grime and stoicism, and Lucy is _terrified_. The implications are too big, too loud, and she's barely holding herself together with what she's just gone through in _this_ timeline. To see herself - to see them…like _that_? To know this is who they're going to become…

Talking to Wyatt - her Wyatt - about any of it seems laughable. He's the one she's trying to protect. He's the cause for that barrier of space that she's been steadily preserving between them for the last several hours. The last damn thing that man needs is some kind of crazy pressure to live up to whatever the hell it is they're supposedly destined to be someday. He...he might love her, but loving her and choosing to go down this road - a road that's now skidding rapidly beneath their feet, as hot and frantic as fresh pavement - are two very different things. Especially to a man who still may or may not believe that his Rittenhouse spy of a wife is carrying a little boy or girl with half of his genetic makeup.

But apparently Wyatt is deciding to chew that space up and spit it right out. His boots thump across the kitchen until he's close behind her, but she doesn't react. She drags a spoon through the swirl of white cream, the metal utensil clanking incessantly against the rim of her coffee cup. She isn't sure if it's just nerves or an attempt to warn him off, but either way, he's ignoring it.

"Little late for coffee, isn't it?"

His chest is solid against her back. His arms ensnare her waist like two irrepressible vines. His mouth is on her neck.

And the rasp of something much thicker than stubble is scratching over her neck, too.

The spoon tumbles from her fingers with a gasp. Realization hits him a second later.

He rears back with a strange noise, nearly knocking a chair over in his haste to retreat.

"I - dammit, I'm sorry, I - "

There's a pause, and then she feels him approaching again, far less of an entitled claim in the way he reaches for her now. It's gentle, tentative. He knows she's spooked and he treats her accordingly. He turns her by the elbow as if grasping the reins of a frenzied horse, moving nice and slow. Despite the brushed back hair and the eclipse of his beard, years of an ongoing war - a war she knows nearly nothing about - weighing against him, his eyes are still his eyes and she isn't great at untangling herself from a look like that one. A look of regret. A look of love.

"Your hair," he says with a smirk that's too obstructed. "You have it pushed all to one side over your shoulder, and with the collar of that robe up, it's...I didn't know it was you."

"So…" Lucy grips the counter behind her and tries to breathe. "So I guess that answers one question."

His face is skeptical. Like...like he thinks it's a lie that there was ever a question in the first place. But then he smooths that expression back down and offers a hesitant smile instead. "Could we just… keep this between us, maybe?"

"I - um…"

"That sounded weird," he interjects with a chuckle. "I didn't mean it like that. I think it's pretty impossible to cheat on you with you...right? But you, my you - _she_ \- is already freaking out about potential ripple effects - you know, the usual song and dance because it's frickin' time travel - and this would definitely qualify as the exact sort of thing I wasn't supposed to do."

Lucy falters, her head pounding at her temples as she tries to sort through the ten levels of insanity that's been coming at her from all sides today. "Won't she eventually know anyway? Since I'm her and she's - but I...I guess that's not how it works if this is your past, right? She can't have new memories if she's the one who left her present, so - "

"Who do you think you're talking to, Luce?" he breaks in with an even bigger laugh than before. "Past, present, or future - I'm not the brains of the operation. Never have been. Take the loop questions to Jiya or Mason, 'cause I'm out."

" _Luce_?"

His face falls. "Shit. That's two now."

"Two?" She can't stop parroting him. She wants to, but it seems this is all she can manage.

"Two unnecessary disruptions. She's gonna kill me. I promised she had nothing to worry about, yet here we are, foot planted square in the mouth, because some things really never do change, do they?"

The picture he's painting isn't one that matches up with the woman who'd emerged with a shotgun strapped to her back and a haircut as blunt as the words that fell from her mouth. A woman who looks sure of everything. Not a chronic worrier. Not the type to give a damn about what her heart-stopping appearance does to the present circumstances of 2018 Lucy.

"What?" Wyatt asks softly, his hand returning to her elbow again. "Something serious is rattling around in that brain of yours…so spill it, Preston."

"She, um, doesn't look like the type to freak out over...over much of anything, really."

This is his fullest laugh yet. His head tilts back, his eyes crease at the corners, teeth flashing white in the overhead light. She hasn't heard a laugh like that in ages. Since maybe that last game of checkers, the one that followed fresh off of their one perfect Hollywood night. It hits her hard. Makes her remember how much _her_ Wyatt deserves more laughter in his life.

"You - she - whatever we're calling my version of you - is still _you_ , okay?" His eyes crinkle further, more lines there than what she's used to, but a genuine smile still looks so good on him. "God knows you never quit worrying. It may be hard to see it from where you're at now, but you've always been both sides of that coin, Lucy - thoughtful, clever, goodhearted to your core...and yet an unbelievable badass who knows no limits when it comes to saving the people you love. She might look like a totally different you, but she's not. You've always been as strong as her."

She breaks eye contact to keep herself from crumpling under the intensity of his praise. "I don't...I don't feel strong at all right now."

"Really?" She hears the smile in his voice, but he isn't laughing anymore. He lowers his head toward hers and catches her cheek in his hand. His thumb is feather-light as he outlines the dark bruise beneath her eye. "Try telling me that again, slugger. I know where these came from. I know how you went off on Emma in 1888. _Alone_ , no less. Nearly gave me a goddamn coronary, in case you didn't know it. I even know how you tried to pop a few more shots off on her even after your face took a nasty beating...with a story like that, you're already so much closer to my Lucy than you realize."

She tries not to cry. She also tries not to feel totally weirded out that he knows far more about what happened to her in 1800s San Francisco than she's shared with him. The _other_ him.

She doesn't succeed on either count.

His thumb moves faster over her face.

"Oh, Lucy," he says with a hauntingly weary sigh. "I'm sorry for being an unbelievable dickhead. Now and before. Or from your point of view, now and now. I shouldn't have said any of this."

"No," she whispers carefully, sucking in her spillway of emotions. "No, it was okay. Good even. It's just a little trippy, you know, but both of you - both Wyatts - always seem to see something in me that I can't - don't…"

His hands shift down to her neck, holding her in place. "Listen up, okay? I'd like to punch his ass from here to Pluto for what he's just put you through, but the one thing you can always count on from him - and I mean _always_ \- is that there is zero bullshit in the way he talks about you...the way we both see you. You really did save my life, and I wasn't screwing around when I said that being Lucy Preston is pretty damn good, as good as any Grace Humiston or Alice Paul. You being you - the one who takes the high road, the most stubborn woman in any room, the kindest, the most generous - that woman is always more than enough for him. For me. In every imaginable universe."

He pulls her in for a hug then, a hug that's somehow a comforting sliver of home in a very foreign place.

And with another hint of laughter in his voice, he confides quietly, close to her ear, "Your Wyatt is watching us, by the way, and he thinks I don't see him. Am I always that stupidly transparent when I feel jealous?"

"Yes," she laughs - freely, unexpectedly - in return. "Oh my God, _yes_."

"Sorry, ma'am. I really don't mean to be such an asshole. It just comes so damn naturally."

That _ma'am_ sends her heart into her throat. She does her best to tame the wild uprising of feelings that never quite die away no matter how often they're trampled. It does her no good to fall back in love with a version of Wyatt Logan who will leave just as suddenly as he arrived. She can wait for _her_ Wyatt so long as he's willing to wait on her too.

Lucy pulls back after another beat, forcing her busted lip up into a grin. "If you can't cheat on me with me, shouldn't that mean he can't be jealous of himself?"

His unimpressed shrug makes her grin wider. "He's a less evolved model. He'll see the light eventually. Give him time."

"Okay," she murmurs quietly, head spinning again at the thought of this man - this Wyatt - knowing exactly when their _eventually_ catches up to them.

Now she understands why future Lucy is so worried. She knows herself well enough to know that she - current Lucy - will burn with lists and lists of questions, will obsess over whether or not she wants the answers, until the moment they're gone again.

"You should go get some sleep, Luce. I might have had the wrong you when I said it the first time, but I'm confident that neither one of you needs a cup of coffee at this hour." He squeezes her shoulder lightly, concern seeping into his blue gaze. "Especially after the day you've had."

One eager question skips immediately to the top of the list.

"When do you start calling me Luce?"

"Nice try, but I'm more afraid of her than I am of you." He takes a backward step away, casts a furtive glance at wherever present Wyatt must be hiding in the shadows, then tips his lips up into a smirk she'd know anywhere. "You might both be badass warrior women, but she's the one I have to go home with...and preferably in one piece."

That seals the deal. She has a damn crush on future Wyatt.

And he winks at her before he goes, because of course he knows exactly what he's doing, dammit.

She turns to dump out her coffee once he disappears from view, wondering how the hell her life had ever gotten this bizarre.

* * *

 _I'm a weirdo who couldn't stop thinking about Wyatt accidentally hitting on the wrong version of his boo. I regret nothing._

 _reviews are cool ;)_


	2. Chapter 2

_a/n: You guys. I have never ever ever received this kind of review explosion on ANY ONE MEASLY chapter of ANYTHING I have ever written. I have been exhausted lately & spend too much of my free time harassing NBC on twitter (because #renewtimeless duh), so I'm not so sure I'll get around to replying individually to the comments on this fic… but oh my goshhh, THANK YOU. THANK YOU! I think it's safe to say that future!lyatt is creating fandom-wide pandemonium and I. Am. Here. For. It. _

_This chapter picks up a few hours later and is still initially from current!Lucy's POV. Keep an eye out for a shift (or two) part way through, though ;)_

* * *

The first thing she feels is stiff, aching pain. Tight bruises. Split skin. That's what wakes her. The meds have worn off, sleep evaporating along with the last of her relief.

And then there's the secondary pain. It's a hollow one, a searing abyss of loss. Surprisingly, Lucy feels that ache just as acutely as the real physical pain. There's nothing but a big gaping yawn where her heart is supposed to exist inside of her chest. A stinging chasm named Rufus.

A piece of that void belongs to Wyatt, too.

And then there's one more person who adds to that sense of vacancy, a title that's rang false and unfit for months now - _Mom_.

She's awake, and there's no undoing it. A whisper of light floats in from above her, pale miserly pre-morning haze, barely giving shape or form to this cubbyhole she calls a room. She'd been too preoccupied by her encounter with future Wyatt to have the foresight to bring medicine - or better yet, vodka - into her room last night, so with bleary eyes and the jarring creak of her reluctant limbs, she pulls a bulky cardigan over her shoulders and plods out into the hallway.

This time she's the one who intrudes on the stomping thud of his boots.

He's up, he's apparently wide awake at this ungodly hour, and he's pacing like he's trying to erode a path directly to China.

Except it's not the laughing, crinkly-eyed Wyatt of last night. No, this one is…

The idea of calling him _hers_ feels like a slap of deceit. She needs to find another way of differentiating between the two of them, because this one doesn't truly belong to her, does he?

 _Give him time_. That's what the future Wyatt had told her - give him time.

"Hey," he says quietly as he comes to an abrupt halt, eyes catching on her from across the room. "It's still really early."

"And yet here _you_ are," she answers, one brow hurdling higher.

"Yeah but…" there's a defeated cast to his shoulders, one that she's seen far too much of lately, "you need rest, Lucy. With the day you had yesterday..."

He's treading closer, saying words that resonate far too well with the same message she'd gotten from the other Wyatt a mere five or six hours ago, and the similarities are tampering with whatever scrap of sanity she has left. Dealing with one of him has already been hard enough. To tangle with two Wyatts on a revolving basis is going to file her down to nothing.

Lucy touches two fingers to the puffy skin beneath her eye and shrugs. "Can't sleep."

Grim understanding twists over his dulled features. He gestures a little desperately in the direction of the couch, muttering almost to himself as he launches into action, "I've got it."

Her gut instinct is to stop him, to insist that she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself without his assistance, but the pent-up spring of his muscles makes her wonder if he's slept at all, and she knows that driving need to be useful. To do anything to offset a bad situation, a situation you want to shoulder even if it's completely out of your hands.

To bring a Snickers bar home every damn night to someone who hasn't eaten solid food in weeks.

She's also getting a flash of his deflated face as she'd hoisted herself up onto that horse in 1863, the one that exposed a major nerve for him; the further she set sail away from Wyatt's coastline, the more dispensable he became, unneeded, perhaps even unwanted, _expendable_.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but coming clean to him then - with the word _pregnant_ branded between them in big, acidic letters - had been impossible.

Now… Well, who the hell knew where they are now, but she's really in no condition to draw any kind of line in their ever-shifting sand at the moment.

So she sits. She accepts the water bottle he offers a minute later, allows him to drop two little white caplets into her palm. And once she's swallowed them down, with a fingernail drawing absently over the scab on her lip, she nods a wordless invitation at the cushion next to her.

Wyatt just turns his gaze to the floor, immobile.

"Have you been up all night?" she asks with a sigh.

"No." The disputing noise in her throat brings his eyes up to hers, causing the skin between his brows to furrow deeply. "Not _all_ night, okay."

Lucy closes her eyes, sighs again, crunches the bottle a little too tightly in her hand. She hates feeling like this. She hates wanting to comfort him. She hates loving him in spite of everything inside of her that screams to let him go for good.

"Would you please just sit down? The hovering thing isn't working for me."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lucy knows instinctively that he isn't doing the ma'am thing to needle her. It isn't an attempt to be funny or charming. The automatic quality of his tone, the stony set of his face, it all implies that he's taking a literal order.

She has no idea how that makes her feel. Not good, but maybe not so bad, either.

The brush of his leg against hers crackles through her as he moves in one long step and takes a seat. He leans far over his knees, still worlds away from her even as they sit side by side.

"May I ask what has you pacing yourself into a frenzy well before 6 AM, soldier?"

Lucy watches his profile carefully, finding a gaunt trace of a smirk at her question, but he doesn't allow it to linger for more than a second or two. "I'm still not so sure about any of this...about _them_."

She remembers then that he'd been watching last night, that he'd observed some snippet of her conversation with his future self, and she can't help but assume that what he saw was helping to shape whatever it was he was trying to express now.

"What do you mean? They're _us_ , Wyatt. I think you're being paranoid."

"Maybe, but I've damn well earned it," he returns gruffly. "How do we know that someone else didn't send them? That this isn't just Rittenhouse screwing with our heads again? Who knows what's out there in the future...they could've cloned us, or microchipped our brains, or I don't know...used some kind of freaky mind control."

Lucy turns to face him more directly, mouth quirked upward as far as she could get it without wincing. "You actually believe that - "

"They might not even be human," he went on with a familiar spark of bullheadedness. "They could be robots programmed to look like us, talk like us."

"Seriously? Evil clones? Robot impostors? You sound like - " the amusement drops away from her voice, heartache rising swiftly in its place, "...you sound like Rufus."

A tick of sadness pulls at Wyatt's mouth. "He would have referenced twelve different movies to back himself up, too."

"Half of which I've never seen and never want to see."

"More than half for me."

She can't blink fast enough to conceal the sudden build of tears. "I miss him."

"Me too," he says hoarsely. His leans back to level the playing field, and his hand turns up against his leg like he's about to extend it to her, but his fingers freeze prematurely, initiating a retreat before the offer is even fully made.

Lucy reaches over without a second thought. Her grip is too intense, she knows it is, but somehow - as improbable, as it may be - he's still a symbol of refuge. A stronghold. Her counterbalance. The one person who knows just how incomplete she feels without the third component of their unlikely trio. He knows the same emptiness. It's their team. Their shared heart.

He returns her pressure with a hardy squeeze of his own. There's a glistening smile, one that holds firm despite the tears that line his eyes, and it speaks so clearly of gratitude, of _hope_. The change in him is instantaneous and magnificent.

If he's her equilibrium, she's his lifeline in the choppiest of seas.

"I'm not...not ready, Wyatt." The words come tripping out of her gracelessly, unplanned. "I can't say it back yet, but - "

"You don't need to."

"I know. I know that's what you said."

"And I meant it," he breathes out like it's an oath written in blood.

"It's not for a lack of wanting to," she confesses in a watery swell of a breath. "For now...until I can - until _we_ \- can move forward, I just need you to be here. To not let the crap we've been through keep us from relying on each other. To not let guilt and pain eat us up to the point that it ruins us."

"I - I can do that. Well, I promise to try...but that last part might be a little hard for me."

Lucy nods, expecting as much, but never on her life did she anticipate that he'd admit it so easily. "Trying is a good enough start."

His other hand comes close to her face, a hint of a tremor behind it, touching down just barely to brush a tear off of her cheek. She sucks in a dizzied breath, sees his immediate flash of doubt, and she moves her head in time to his before he can duck away from her. "It's okay. That was okay."

"It didn't look okay to me," he murmurs back, eyes scanning her face in quick, restless sweeps.

"You - the _other_ you - " she trails off and shakes her head, but there's no reprieve from the outlandish reverberations of this current reality windmilling through her brain. "Let's just call it déjà vu, alright?"

"I'm glad you're bonding with them." He chuckles, but it's a small, unconvincing sound. "Pretty sure they both hate me. Not that I blame them."

"They don't hate you."

"You really so sure about that, Lucy? Because she hasn't looked me in the eye once, and he - me, _whatever_ \- yeah, when he looks my way, it's about as amicable as the Cuban Missile Crisis."

"The Cuban Missile Crisis? Nice one."

"Thought you might like it," he says wryly.

Her hand is already like a vice around his, but Lucy somehow finds a way to clamp down even firmer. "If I don't hate you now, there's no way any version of me ever could."

He glances sideways, his expression indecipherable. "I'll attempt to take that as a point in my favor."

"Wyatt, I - I wasn't trying to - "

"I know," he cuts in with a slice of a grin. "And it's appreciated. Just so ya know."

Lucy's head lolls back slowly, sinking against the back of the couch as much as anything _can_ sink into that sad slab of furniture. The persistent ache of her injuries are beginning to subside, and with that tinge of relief comes the return of a sleepiness she'd been sure was out of reach.

"Go back to bed, Lucy."

His voice is warm honey, a low ooze that melts over her, the bittersweet memento of a Wyatt who'd been mellowed by the luster of passionate release. A morning-after Wyatt. A happy, languid, incandescent Wyatt.

She loosens her hold on his hand and he does the same, awaiting her eventual withdrawal with expectant eyes. Her head slides from side to side on rusty hinges. They've walked away from each other so much lately, repelling against the undeniable tether that bonds them, stretching their connection as thin as it can possibly go.

This gray-hued morning doesn't carry much sunshine, but a well-known impulse is cutting through the perpetual fog that surrounds them; an impulse that insists for more than his hand in hers.

So she does extract her fingers from the web they've made, but it's only so the rest of her body can fold forward into his chest. His arms twine around her so fast that she knows it's an unconscious reaction on his part. With her head sagging across his shoulder and her legs curling up to press lightly into one of his, she takes one very full breath and exhales bucketloads of grief, anxiety, anguish. There's a dash of his bristling stubble against her forehead as he fits himself against her. He's breathing just as deeply, just as abundantly, as she is.

"I saw you with him last night," he murmurs confidentially, like he's sitting on the other side of a confessional screen. "Weirdest shit I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot these days. Me, but not _me_. Holding you like this."

"Trust me, you're not the only one who's having a hard time adjusting to the idea."

"You seemed to be adjusting just fine," he volleys back with an edge of cynicism, giving credence to the claims from his future self. Paper-thin jealousy, aimed indirectly at himself, foolish as that may be. Before Lucy can point out the absurdity of that position, his shoulder shakes from beneath her with a rueful snicker. "Don't bother. I know how stupid I sound."

"Thank God, because I really wasn't looking forward to explaining that to you."

His voice catches this time, his usual blustering humor washing up short. "He might be me, but I get the impression that he's properly atoned for his sins. Until I find a way to the same, it's no fun watching you hug it out with that doomsday robot."

"He's not a robot," Lucy mumbles into his shirt. "He smells just like you."

"Probably because I loaned him my shower stuff," Wyatt retorts with a grunt. "Hope Rambo used some shampoo in that frickin' beard or we might have to burn this whole place down to get rid of the bugs."

She laughs. It's full of new tears, messy and clogged, and there might have even been an unattractive snort somewhere in there, but oh God, does it ever feel good.

"There it is," Lucy says as she swipes at her wet face, "the movie reference Rufus would be proud of."

Wyatt's arms tighten around her, the side of his face coming to a full stop against the crown of her head. "You know I'm in, right? As crazy as it is, as much as I still worry that it could blow up in our faces...it's _Rufus_. Of course I'm in."

She closes her eyes with a lazy smile. "I know you are. Couldn't have convinced me of anything less."

* * *

"Wyatt," she calls dimly, voice still gritted with sleep. She can barely even see him through heavy, sated eyelids, but she is able to make out a blurred canvas of skin - lots of it - and that's an obvious red flag. "Clothes. You have to wear clothes."

"What do you call these, Luce?" he asks with his hand snapping the waistband of his boxer briefs.

"Cute, but no," she says with an unfurling stretch, blinking lethargically. "We agreed to not advertise the fact that we're sleeping together."

"I agreed to not advertise the wedded bliss, babydoll. Didn't promise a word about sleeping arrangements."

" _Wyatt_."

"Fine." He crosses the room, lowers his lips to hers with a grin-infused kiss, then retrieves a t-shirt and sweatpants from his younger counterpart's stash. "But I don't want to hear any complaints later when you try to lure me back to bed. This was your doing."

"As if you'd actually hold out on me if that's what I wanted," she taunts back, reaching up to slide her fingertips through his beard once he's within striking distance again.

His eye roll does nothing to sell his case. That glinting grin of his only grows, reflecting the sure-fire accuracy of her indictment. "You're such a damn killjoy."

"You love me," she hums in response, hands hooking around his neck to drag him down to her.

She intends to keep it short, but all it takes is one kiss to consume her like a blast of heat lightning, and then he's halfway on top of her a moment later, the rough friction of his hands soon chafing up beneath her shirt. Well, his shirt… or baby-faced Wyatt's shirt, one that she'd helped herself to without asking, to be more technical.

"I do love you," he says before harnessing her lower lip between his teeth. He bites, licks, then sweeps higher, kissing the tip of her nose, the center of her forehead. "So much. Always."

She ruffles a hand through his hair, sighing appreciatively when he dips down to gnaw at a shudder-inducing spot on her neck. "You're not letting them get to you, are you?"

"Of course I am. We both knew that was inevitable."

Lucy laughs good-naturedly, adoring every last inch of that fragile heart, the one that refuses to be hidden beneath whatever stupid tough guy pretense he thinks he upholds. She tugs him to her mouth once more, gets him back on track with a single chaste kiss, then exhales an order against his lips. "As you were, soldier. Coffee first. Then sex. It always turns out better that way."

"Only if you think getting pounced on by the freaking Energizer Bunny somehow translates to _better_ …"

"Tell me it doesn't, Logan. Tell me that with a straight face and I - "

His kiss steals the words from her mouth, the breath from her lungs. "You're right, _Logan_. Your cute caffeinated ass can pounce all over me as often as you'd like."

As much as she revels in his use of her new last name, it's a habit she's not so sure she should be encouraging at the moment. "Keep calling me that in here and you're bound to slip up out there."

"Yeah, about that…"

She stiffens beneath him. "You didn't."

He shoves off from the bed with a sheepish laugh, jamming a thumb over his shoulder toward the door. "So...coffee right? I'm on it."

Lucy flings a pillow at him, but damn him and his combat-honed reflexes - not only does he catch it easily, but it's sailing right back at her in an instant, flopping against her stomach with a soft thump.

"I thought she was you," he says with a hand on the door, repentant and humbled, but clearly crafting a well-timed escape for the reaction he knows is to come. "Honest mistake. And before you go ballistic, all she knows is that I like kissing your neck. Hell, she already knew that, right? Didn't exactly make a secret of it in '41 if I recall correctly."

He does recall correctly. He's always been good like that, effortlessly retaining details both small and large, especially details like that one.

Because not only does he like kissing her neck, but he also knows _she_ likes it when he kisses her neck. Another thing that hadn't been much of a secret between them in the shimmering seclusion of Hedy Lamarr's guesthouse.

"You're downplaying this, I'm sure," she states flatly, but God knows she can't actually stay mad. Not with him, and not about mistaken neck kisses.

"I'm sure you'll have no trouble brainstorming an appropriate punishment for my lapse in good judgement." He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, the shameless bastard. "It's not my fault, anyway. Entrapment on her part, no doubt about it. I've always been a sucker for those ugly robes you collect."

"You are not."

" _Wrong_. Easy access, ya know...just one yank on that knot and - "

Her arm wheels back and the pillow is airborne again, but he's ready as always. Wyatt vanishes into the hallway and has the door shut in time for her ammo to smack against the metal barrier instead of catching her intended target.

The disappearing act gives her time to mull over what this could mean for them. They both knew the risk too well before they'd embarked on this jump, understood the potential reverberations through time that they were bound to cause. A different result for Rufus would surely alter their current reality in ways too vast to calculate, and it's not like she hasn't already gone over this a thousand times before, but…

But she needs this so badly, needs _him_ so badly, needs to go home to a world that still grants her Wyatt Logan even if they've manipulated the hands of the universe for the sake of their missing friend, their pilot, the third component of their unlikely trio. The grief that glues them together, their shared heart. Their _Rufus_.

Wyatt creeps back in much sooner than expected, sans coffee mugs, a finger to his lips.

"Come here," he says with a devious tilt to his head. "You have to see this."

"What?"

She doesn't move fast enough for his liking, so he's dragging her from beneath the rumpled sheets in another heartbeat, hauling her through the door with both arms wrapped around her waist.

"Wait, I'm not wearing pants," she hisses in protest, digging heels against the floor until her bare feet make solid contact with the freezing-ass concrete and then she's hissing again as she curls her arms up to his shoulders. "Or socks, dammit."

He leverages her weight up against one hip, not the least bit interested in stalling for even a moment. "Keep it down, will ya? Geez, woman. We don't need to wake the whole bunker."

Wyatt slows his pace as they round the corner, footfalls becoming softer, his muscles tensing beneath her arms in a familiar way that she teasingly refers to as stealth mode.

Stealth-mode Wyatt never goes for teasing, though. It's the only time she gets to do all the razzing without any backlash from him.

"Look," he says, eyes alight, a big toothy smile plastered over his face - a smile that contradicts everything she knows about stealth mode. "Look at them."

Lucy follows his gaze, then nearly forgets what it means to breathe.

Whatever it is that her Wyatt had unloaded on poor present Lucy yesterday, it seems to have done far more good than harm.

Her eyes go to younger Wyatt first. It's only natural, a well-traveled circuit built upon years of reflex.

He's cradling his Lucy to the middle of his chest, arms as secure around that version of her as the arms that circle her own body now. His eyes are closed, face soft with sleep, and he has his nose buried straight into the nest of dark curls that hangs much longer than her current style. His Lucy looks as close to serene as those awful bruises allow, her whole body tucked seamlessly into his, one hand keeping a fistful of his shirt wedged between her fingers.

"They're so cute," she whispers, unexpectedly battling a tsunami of emotion that's rushing up her throat.

" _We're_ so cute," he mumbles, his beard tickling the shell of her ear.

She understands the reasoning behind that correction. It is them, after all. A battered, undone, younger but already so scarred, _them_. They haven't seen the end of their hardships, but it seems as if they know even now that the path they're on will always be smoother when they navigate it together.

"You still do that shirt thing. The unconscious death grip."

"I do?"

"Yeah." He brushes his nose over her cheek. "And people think _I'm_ the possessive one."

She's too absorbed in her happiness - in the delicate whisperings of _hope_ \- to even really hear that smartass remark of his.

"Wyatt?"

"Yeah, Luce?"

"Let's skip the coffee for now."

She mostly means that she doesn't want to risk waking them, but she's also pretty sure that the dark desire she sees in his eyes must be fully reflected in her own.

As expected, he doesn't require much convincing. "Yes, ma'am."

It's the way things work with them anymore, reading off the same page far more often than not. Thoughts aligned like clockwork. That's their superpower, if they were ever to claim such a thing - sharing one mind, one heart, in two separate bodies.

Not that those two bodies tended to stay separate for any longer than they had to.

* * *

One eyelid peels upward, followed closely by the other.

It's mirage, a trick of the imagination, just a snapshot that's disintegrating before Wyatt can even be sure of what he thinks he - what he _maybe_ saw.

No, he knows. There's no maybe about it. He'd recognize a flash of Lucy's bare legs, no matter how brief of a glimpse he gets, just about anywhere. And is that _his_ shirt she has on? There's nothing but an army green tee, one that does little to conceal the endless flight of pale skin. She's hoisted in midair for a millisecond, and then she's gone.

And yet she's also right here.

A squinty-eyed glance down at his chest confirms that long-haired Lucy is out cold against him, making the occasional sleepily contented noise that's never once faded from his golden-hued memory.

But another Lucy noise - a throaty laugh that hints of anything but sleep - rings down the hall before the solid bang of a metal door seals off that sound for good.

 _Well then_.

He has the barbaric impulse to high five the other Wyatt as soon as he has the chance, and between the cozy warmth of one Lucy surrounding him and the preview of what may just await him with the _other_ Lucy someday, the idea of going back to sleep is damn well impossible.

It's no hardship of a trade-off. If he can't have actual dreams for however much time remains before the rest of the Silo springs to life around them, the daydreams spiraling through his mind are going to be more than enough to keep him occupied.

* * *

 _a/n: note to self 1 - don't write about Rufus when someone might catch you with tears in your eyes (oops)_  
 _note to self 2 - don't finish editing after 1 in the morning, you idiot (that's my apology for tired-eyed mistakes)_

 _hit up that review box, mmmkay? thanks for reading :)_


	3. Chapter 3

_A few notes here:  
1) This is probably the last chapter of this fic for now, but that decision is open for debate :)  
2) This chapter is from future Lucy's POV  
3) NBC sucks. Someone hold a seance for my spirit in case I expire before this decision is made.  
_

 _That's all. Go read :)_

* * *

She's forgotten how much she hates this place.

Sure, there's the obvious coppery tang of sorrow, a perpetual stain of despair that trails after each of the bunker's usual occupants. It's the loss of freedom, the loss of sunlight, the loss of a love that's barely taken its first breath, and now it's the loss of Rufus too.

Lucy has prepared herself for the hopelessness that permeates these shadowy halls. It wasn't so long ago that this pit had been her home. She'd been confident - overconfident, in fact - that she knew exactly what to expect.

It's the smaller things that her memory has graciously abandoned with time, though. The little hang-ups that fill in the details of a much larger painting, all of which conveys one predominant theme - rotting isolation. There's the prevailing chill that never tapers off, day or night, clinging to her backs of her arms and the tips of her toes no matter what she does. A single bathroom that's supposed to accommodate an entire team of ragtag misfits but doesn't come with a freaking lock. A shortage of hot water. The crappiest furniture mankind has ever designed. Poor lighting. No damn privacy, although Wyatt's insistence that the two of them bunk together has at least alleviated that inconvenience. Her younger self doesn't know the same luxury.

Because even here, in the broken-down Silo from hell, Wyatt Logan's presence in her bed is _definitely_ a luxury.

One other nuisance she hasn't accounted for? The rumbling hunger in her stomach that a Lucy of five years ago had been incapable of feeling. That Lucy hasn't had an appetite since the day her mom uttered the word _Rittenhouse_ in the faded warmth of their family kitchen. It almost returned to her somewhere between those six weeks of captivity and the arrival of a certain blonde-headed traitor in their midst, but with one ruthless ring of her cell phone, the bottom fell out again. She hadn't been able to taste a bite of whatever food she'd managed to choke down for weeks on end.

Not the case anymore. She works too hard, _fights_ to hard, to not eat properly. God knows Wyatt had badgered the hell out of her about it in the beginning, but there's no need for him to keep that up anymore. As soon as she's given the opportunity to process something beyond the gripping adrenaline of warfare, her stomach is bound to catch up with her.

Which is how she finds herself on tiptoe in the harsh fluorescent light of a bare kitchenette, straining on tired legs for a box of freaking pop-tarts, because Garcia Flynn was right all those years ago when he'd complained in Salem. The food here is shit. She'd just been too wracked with trauma to know it back then.

That pack of pop-tarts - likely to be staler than sawdust, if she's venturing to guess - is just barely evading the tips of fingers when a hand lands unexpectedly on her shoulder, and she's swinging with a vengeance before she can even register his softly spoken offer of - "Here, let me..."

She's horrified even as it's happening. It's like her arm has detached itself from the rest of her body and there's no changing course now. She sees it unfolding but can't stop it, can't correct herself before it's too late.

Wyatt doesn't do much better. A flare of surprise shoots over his face as he reels back to sidestep the blow, but he doesn't quite make it in time. Her fist connects with his face, glancing across his cheek as he turns his head to take it with the least amount of impact; the irony is that he's eventually going to be the one who teaches her to do the same.

Or perhaps the even greater irony is that he's _also_ the one who taught her to swing that fist in the first place.

"Wyatt! Oh God, I'm so sorry, but honestly - what the hell? Why were you - " a creeping smudge of red seeps at the corner of his lip before he can reach up to cover it with his hand. She's broken skin. " _Shit_. Shit, Wyatt."

He waves her concern away with a dismissive roll of his eyes. "It's fine. Nothing, really."

Lucy reaches for him, fingers eager to soothe the damage she's done, but her heart seizes in warning. He's not that Wyatt. Not the _right_ Wyatt. Not the one who's bandaged her up just as many times as she's bandaged him.

Her arm drops uselessly, hanging at her side in strange suspension until she can jolt herself into action. "Is the first aid kit in the same place as always?"

"I don't need - "

"Yes, you do. Don't be an idiot."

She says it with the same flippant exasperation as all versions of Wyatt deserve, but his reaction sends her usual sense of ease skittering out of control. His eyes are pained, filled with a quick and acute shame that immediately makes her queasy.

He isn't ready to hear her say things like that. It isn't okay for her to put him down right now, not even teasingly, not when he already thinks the worst of himself. He's all too eager to believe any slight that comes his way.

So now she's touching him anyway, breaking her own rules in a heartbeat, dammit. All because no one does sad eyes like Wyatt Logan does sad eyes.

With a jaw that's almost too curiously smooth cradled against her palm, she guides his face to one side and reassesses the small gash on his mouth. "I didn't mean it. You're too stubborn, and sometimes you get a little short-sighted, but you are _not_ an idiot, Wyatt."

She feels a zapping current of tension taking shape beneath her hand, the instant rejection of her words ransacking its way through him before he can even begin to form the words.

"You know better than that," he disputes in quiet resignation. "We both do."

Lucy has battled this same folding despondency from him before. Hell, she's _won_ this battle before. It's a damn shame that her usual tactics often begin with kissing him and end with collapsing beneath him - or on top of him - spent and sated and glowing, because that's not an option with this Wyatt who belongs to a different Lucy.

There's always words too. Whispers, soft and fervent, sometimes a little desperate, lined with a heat that burns her up from head to toe. Words that remind him of who he really is, words that tell the story of how she's come to rely so fully on him, how she's fallen for him again and again because he leaves her no other choice. Words of trust, of reassurance, of belief. She reminds him that he's rebuilt himself before, after a bleak Texas childhood, after Syria, after San Diego. In the trenches of the Alamo. From his descent into 1983 and a lonesome stint in black site imprisonment.

He's rebuilt her too. He's taken her crumbled ruins, her pitted foundation, and cleared it all away until they're both rock-strong again. _Together_. After her mother drew her last breath in Chinatown and the fragments of a shattered marriage slipped through his fingers for a second time, they started again. They came home to world without Rufus, and on a cold concrete floor that didn't feel low enough for either of them, their first tentative step came in the form of three little words she never expected to hear from him.

From there they've designed a castle of their own making, one monumental structure that cannot be shaken or tarnished. An untouchable fortress.

But he doesn't know that now, and Lucy can't rely on that same solid ground that she treads so easily with her Wyatt. She also sure as hell can't silence his doubts with a roll of her hips or the glide of her tongue. Not today, not...not with _him_.

She might be needing something out of that first aid kit too if she keeps dwelling on all of this, because two Wyatt Logans under one roof is giving her a damn headache. Or heartache. Probably all of the above.

"Just sit, okay?" She tips her head toward the table behind him, allowing one last indulgent sweep of her hand against whiskery face. "I'll be right back."

By the time she returns, he's slumping backward into one of those chairs with a scowl so pitiful that he nearly has her laughing at his expense.

He surveys her reaction in a split-second and crosses his arms with a wary look. "If it's not one of you telling me what to do, it's the other. This is the second time today I've been told where to sit by some bossy know-it-all. Guess that's to be expected when there's more than one of you to deal with."

Lucy snickers as she takes the seat next to him and unclips the latch of the kit, remembering her demands for coffee to his much scruffier self in the early hours of the morning. "Oh, you have no idea…"

"At least he's reaping the benefits, right?"

She drops her gaze abruptly and hones in on the task at hand, stifling the swift stab of panic that accompanies his left-field suggestion. "Hold still. And quit talking."

He does as asked for as long as it takes for her to sanitize the surface of the cut and press a piece of gauze over it, his breath leaving him in short, staccato exhales. As much as she fears for her own diminishing sense of composure as she leans in so close, touches him so intimately, that's nothing compared to what might happen once she loses her excuse for keeping him silent. Subtlety has never been his preferred tactic, and she's not ready for his bulldozing curiosity.

"There," she says as she smooths a strip of adhesive across his warm skin. "All better."

Heat rises up her neck as his gaze flips down to her lips for just long enough to make his train of thought known. Her chair scrapes backward, memories of her own Wyatt kissing away the pain from so many stinging scrapes and sprawling bruises consuming her in a flash.

He gets the message, leaning away and stroking a meditative index finger over her work.

"So this makes us even, huh?" he proposes after a few uncomfortable seconds have passed, his small smile stretching distressingly thin.

She frowns, not quite sure what he's getting at. "Her bruises aren't your fault. I never expected you to leave Rufus when I grabbed that gun and went after Emma. I chose to go off on my own and I don't regret it."

The strain that grips his face doubles. "I'm not talking about her bruises."

"Then what - " Lucy's eyes narrow in realization, lips twitching downward. "Wyatt...you can't mean…"

"That elbow to the face that I never got a chance to apologize for? Because I sure as hell mean that."

"It was an accident," she protests gently.

"Yeah, well so was this," Wyatt says with half a shrug as he hitches a thumb in the direction of his busted lip. "It's only right that you've returned the favor. Especially _you_ \- the you that's obviously been taught how to throw a proper punch. Much better than that windmill of an arm in 1918."

"It's a reflex," she murmurs repentantly, a hand straying up to touch his cheek again before she can check the impulse. "A very easily triggered reflex by now, one that the other Wyatt knows to avoid at all costs."

He sinks against her palm, eyes falling shut like he's coming under some sort of trance. "A reflex, huh? I don't know if I should be impressed or heartbroken."

That's a familiar admission from him. He's always hated it even if he's the one who insists it's a necessity in the next breath.

"Both. It's usually both."

His gaze is clearer, far more piercing and exact, when he blinks back up at her again. "You've been avoiding me."

Lucy pitches her head sideways in question, withdrawing her hand from the thin dusting of his five o'clock shadow before she's too far gone. The nostalgia of it will eat her alive, make her careless, give way to something that had earned Wyatt - _her_ Wyatt - a halfhearted scolding and a few sailing pillows just a handful of hours ago. "I saw the two of you asleep on the couch this morning, and that looked nothing like avoidance to me."

"No," he says with a soft sigh. " _You_. This you. Not her."

"What? Why would I - "

He scoffs, but there's no heat behind it. "Don't do that. You might know your way around a shotgun and pack a mean right hook, but you still can't hide anything in that face of yours when you're cornered...which is probably why you've been keeping your distance. You know it's the only way to - to dodge whatever it is that you don't want me to see. Because, trust me, you're dodging big time."

"This isn't a family reunion, you know," she retorts a little too combatively, rising from her seat and decisively snapping the first aid kit shut. "I didn't come here to socialize. We're here for Rufus. Sorry if that's cramping your style."

His lips swell into a smirk that holds absolutely no heed for the gauze she's just taped into place. "And now you're being defensive. Even better."

This conversation is unreal. And annoying as all hell. He's always been too perceptive, but this time... _dammit_ , this time, she's supposed to have the advantage by five freaking years of extra intel. "Wyatt - "

"Listen, that bearded wonder you showed up with yesterday? I have that guy's number. He's pissed with me. Not hard to figure out, especially because I'm pissed with me too." He pauses, reconsiders, then snorts out a cheap laugh. "I just said the same thing twice, didn't I? Him being pissed _is_ me being pissed, right?"

Lucy huffs a sigh that's forceful enough to blow her own hair away from her face. "Is that a rhetorical question, or…?"

He laughs for real this time, pushing himself up to his feet and shaking his head sharply. "God, you just get snarkier with age, don't you?"

"Damn straight. And you learn to embrace it, just so you know."

"Yeah…" Wyatt casts a lingering look down over her, blue eyes burning anew, "I bet I do."

She pushes playfully against his shoulder, because if she doesn't push him back, God knows she'll resort to pulling him in. "So _not_ the kind of embracing I was talking about."

"Oh really? Because I'm convinced it's both."

And there it is again, the implication she can't avoid. Even with all the lecturing she's done with her Wyatt, she knows now that there's no preparation for this moment. She's as good as sunk before she even begins. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw you this morning too, ya know," he discloses in a voice that's too deep to be trusted. "Or to be more specific, I saw a whole lotta leg...leg that definitely belongs to you. And a stolen t-shirt too, if I'm not mistaken."

"Finders keepers," she answers rather lamely.

Wyatt flicks a few fingers through the ends of her hair, a wistful smile crawling lazily over his face. "This shorter look suits you. I'm really not sure which way I like it better."

She's not encouraging this. She shouldn't. She can't. It's too strange, too messy, but...but this is also the lightest she's seen him since the hatch to the Lifeboat cranked open yesterday, and there's nothing she dreads more than chasing the levity from his face.

"Wow, that's a big step up from _not hideous_. Are you coming on to me, sweetheart?"

Oh dammit, she's totally encouraging this.

"And risk further inflaming my future self's hostility? Wouldn't dream of it, babydoll." He chuckles nice and low, raking those same fingertips - fingertips she knows better than her own - down over her neck. "I know how he can be with these things."

Her mouth falls open, irrationally defensive over her Wyatt, because the one in front of her is only a million times worse about that trivial bullshit than the man she calls her husband. "How _you_ can be with these things."

"Tomay-to, tomah-to."

She's laughing in spite of herself now, God help her. "You are such a pain in the ass, Logan."

Mild confusion passes breezes across his face before he shrugs it off, but Lucy sees the wheels turning. She's just done something - said something - that isn't clicking for him yet.

 _Logan_. She doesn't do that back then, does she? The last name thing...they didn't really pick that up until they're able to joke about their cover story in Hollywood, and for the Wyatt of today, Hollywood is anything but a joke.

It's official - she's screwing this up just as badly as her own Wyatt did with the other Lucy.

She shuffles backward until the kitchen counter bites into her waist, a sudden awareness of their closeness burning through the fog that's taken up residence in her head.

The light behind his eyes dims slightly, but he doesn't fight to reclaim the lost proximity. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you in here, ya know? It wasn't a conscious thing. I just - "

He shakes his head, a brittle half-grin gaining purchase as he flounders.

"Just what?" Lucy asks, sure that she'll regret it even as she's drawing the words out of him.

"You're okay, right? With me, with him..?" He looks away, but not before she suspects that there are tears clawing stubbornly to the surface. "Someday, eventually, it stops being so - so damn hard, right?"

"Wyatt - "

"I need to know," he pleads suddenly, "tell me...tell me I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing. Tell me that I'll stop hurting her, that I still have some shot of proving myself worthy of her."

Her hands are on either side of his face in an instant, mooring him to her before the fear can devour him whole. "She trusts you. She needs you. Far more than you know, even now."

"But how could she ever - "

"I know what you're thinking, okay? You're sure that no one needs you here…that you've only made her life worse by being in it, and nothing you can do will change that now." She watches his mouth part in surprise, his chest rising unsteadily at the precision of that particular insight. "But you're wrong, Wyatt. I know it better than anyone. She's me, and she needs you just as much as you need her. If you keep letting yourself doubt that, then you're only going to hurt her again and again."

That's still a tough pill for him to swallow, but he's hanging on her every word, that much is obvious. He clears his throat roughly, unleashing a fragile thread of a smirk. "You've always had a way of pulling me off the ledge, haven't you?"

"It's what we do," she murmurs. "We save each other."

Wyatt nods into her hands, his eyebrows creasing together. "Thank you...ma'am."

"Last tip - never stop calling me that, okay?"

Now his devilish smirk is fully realized, as beautiful as it is intoxicating. "Wasn't planning on it, ma'am."

"Good." Lucy leans in, slides her lips over his cheek for no more than one breathless moment, then extricates herself from him with one clear goal in mind.

The hunger from before has all but evaporated, leaving a much different craving in its place. She's down the hall as fast as can get herself to him, and when he's finally in sight - longer hair, hardened muscle, the full contour of a dark beard - she eagerly collides into him all at once.

"Luce?" he asks into her hair, the unspoken current of his concern channeling into his strong arms as he anchors her to his chest.

"I love you, Wyatt. I have loved you from the start. It was true before I could ever understand it, and it never once faltered."

"They got to you too, huh?"

It's her own words from earlier in the day coming back to haunt her, but he doesn't exploit their role reversal any further than that, even if it's what she deserves. There's just a noise of understanding and then he's tucking her closer. His hand runs in a pacifying line up her neck while he nuzzles his mouth to her temple, an implicit comfort that requires no words.

She clears her throat, firming up her emotions for just long enough to make sure they're on the same page. "The second Rufus is back where he belongs, we're out of here, okay?"

"You've got it, ma'am."

There's no way of knowing if she's just encountered a causal loop of her own making from the Wyatt she's left in the kitchen to the one who holds her now, but something tells her this is a fixed point that exists far beyond her influence. There's probably not a Wyatt in any variation of the universe who can resist the use - and misuse - of that unlikely term of endearment.

Lucy presses her face into his shoulder and smiles softly, immensely grateful for the fact that one day, eventually, it had definitely stopped being so damn hard.


End file.
